The church's future

1 John 2:14: “I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him from has been from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.” John says here that the strength of young men is in the Word of God and in their ability to overcome the enemy. This is an interesting statement. We tend to think that it would take as many years to come to know God’s Word and to have spiritual power to overcome the enemy as it would to gain the type of knowledge of God possessed only by the fathers who, John says, “know Him who has been from the beginning”. Yet such is not the case. It is true that some levels of understanding God’s Word take years to reach. But the problem lies in our over-emphasis on intellectual knowledge.

While it make take years of advanced training to understand certain aspects of Scripture, or to be able to get up and teach the church about it, most of the Bible is pretty simple. Anyone can gain a sufficient grasp of it quickly enough to use it. A brand-new convert with only a small understanding of the Word can use it against the enemy to devastating effect. By the same token, an unbelieving or liberal-minded professor of theology may have accumulated a lifetime of facts about the Bible – many of them erroneous –  but in truth understands it less than the new convert on fire for God. There is something in the spirit of a young man which takes the Bible as a sword and jumps at the chance of using it in battle. That’s what he’s talking about here.

The same thing is true for the second part of the statement. Young men are destined by God to overcome the enemy. You don’t have to have known God for years to enter into battle and triumph. After all, the armed forces usually recruit men under 25, not over 50! There is a raw strength of faith in young men which can be harnessed to achieve great things.

Satan’s strategy, therefore, is to neutralize the strength of the young men. The young men are the future fathers and leaders, and if he destroys them now, he destroys the future of the church. That’s why the fathers (who know God and equally know the enemy and his ways), are charged with safeguarding the young men and helping them to achieve their destiny. The generals, through their years of experience, know their enemy, know his tactics, and know the way to win. But it is the soldiers who will fight the battle. The job of the generals (like the fathers in the church) is to release the young men in such a way that their strength is employed most effectively.

All this leads us to ask the question: how many churches are making the raising up of young men their overriding pastoral focus? Food for thought!

Delivered from the power of darkness

“For He delivered us from the authority of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:13-14) The word “delivered” speaks of the action of a mighty conqueror who rescues someone by his great strength. “Authority” refers to a tyrannical form of government, enslaving those under its power. A greater power must intervene. No man can rescue himself from the authority of darkness. Jesus used exactly the same phrase at Gethsemane when the crowd came to seize Him: “While I was with you daily in the temple, you did not lay hands on me, but this hour and the authority of darkness are yours” (Luke 22:53). Jesus notes that the people opposing Him are exercising  the power of darkness. But those who try to use the power of darkness will also fall under its authority.

When man fell into sin, he tried to make use of the serpent’s wisdom to gain his own goals, but soon found that he had fallen under both the serpent’s authority and its judgment. The authority of darkness is the place of Satan’s rule and the counterfeit or opposite of God’s kingdom. It is the place where every single one of us lived before we came to Christ. We entered it through sin, and every one of us has sinned. We can exit it only through total absence of sin and obedience to God, the state in which we were created. But no man can free himself from the hold of sin and so no man can free himself from the kingdom of darkness. We are in an impossible dilemma!

Yet there is a way out, for Christ has delivered us; the verse continues: “He has transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.” The word “transferred” or “removed” was the word used when conquering kings took with them whole populations of towns and cities and moved them to a new place. They did it for an evil cause, but God does it for our benefit. What we could not do He has done. Notice that we do not have to wait for the future to be part of His kingdom. We are in His kingdom now. To be in His kingdom means to be living under His rule and authority, to be experiencing the reality of His power in our lives. To be transferred into the kingdom means change, and change for the better. What was impossible before is possible now.

Claiming our inheritance

“Strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light” (Colossians 1:11-12). There are three things listed here that should characterize a Christian: power, patience and joyful thanksgiving. They are described here as part of our inheritance… what Christ has made available to us. Imagine having an inheritance, yet not knowing about it, or, knowing about it, not claiming it! The Christian life is not just a grind, as we keep on trying to become better people. We cannot change at all without the continuous empowering of the Holy Spirit being poured into our lives.

People seek the power of Spirit to make them feel better or because they get excited about the supernatural. But the power of the Spirit is given to change our lives and make us more like Christ. Even when we witness a miracle, it should motivate us to know the Christ who performed this miracle better. A changed church is a powerful church. There should be no contradiction between character and charisma. The fact is that God will pour out His Spirit most powerfully on those whose lives He can trust to use that power wisely and in a way that will reflect well on Him.

With power comes patience. When we have experienced the power of God in one area, it gives us patience to wait in others. And along with power and patience comes thanksgiving. Life for the world is always cup half-full and cup half-empty. Some cope better with it than others. But for the Christian who is growing in the knowledge of God, life is always cup overflowing even in the face of suffering. The same man who wrote the opening words also wrote this: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21) He is the same man who, with his back raw and bleeding, sang praises to God in the Philippian jail. Was it not the power of his praise that precipitated the earthquake that set free not only him and Barnabas, but also everyone around him?

Think about the consequences of your praise. Power, patience and thanksgiving…. we cannot work any of them up by our own strength, but they are freely available in the Holy Spirit to those who ask for them — an inheritance to be claimed.

Maturity is measurable

“So that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:10). The result of receiving the knowledge of Christ is that our lives change. Milton had a keen insight when he talked about the pilgrim’s progress. Christian maturity, holiness, or whatever you want to call it, is measurable. If we are not moving forward we are moving backward because the will of God is constant continuous positive change. The change may be small at times but we are always moving in the right direction.

Christians should be the most directed and motivated people in the world, and the church should be the most directive and purposeful institution. As we change, it gives us a hunger for even more of the knowledge of God. Knowing Christ gives us a desire for God’s wisdom and the willingness to apply it practically, even if it means doing the opposite of what the world would do. Honesty, as Ben Franklin said, actually is the best policy, even if our human nature would prefer protecting ourselves through lying and cheating. When we find out that God’s ways and His Word work, it gives us a hunger to know Christ and His Word better and to find even more wisdom.

After a period of time, the accumulation of knowledge, wisdom and insight begins to make our lives different from the lives of those around us and becomes a powerful testimony to the ability of Jesus Christ to change men and women for the better. To stop with salvation and forgiveness and refuse to move further into the knowledge of Christ and His wisdom being applied in our lives produces religious people whose lives are sadly not much different, and sometimes even worse than the lives of those around them, and it turns people away from Christ.

Knowledge that changes everything

“For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding…” (Colossians 1:9) Here, as in Ephesians, Philippians and Philemon, Paul prays that believers would receive the knowledge of God. “Knowledge” refers to the personal relationship we have with Christ. This is not something that accumulates as random pieces of information; it is something which “fills” our lives. Knowing information may have no effect on our lives at all, but knowing Christ changes everything.

This knowledge is supplemented with “wisdom” and “understanding”, or “insight”. “Wisdom” refers to an accurate understanding of life and the world around us which comes from God’s Word. “Insight” carries the idea of the strategic ability to apply that wisdom. When we come to know Christ, we are delivered out of ignorance and into relationship with Christ. This is real knowledge. With this knowledge comes a correct perception of life through the Scriptures, and with that in turn comes the ability, by the power of the Spirit,  to apply that understanding practically. Without the knowledge of God through Christ, our knowledge and wisdom will be limited. We will attempt to understand the creation without understanding the Creator.

The world has information, but the church has revelation. The difference between the two is that revelation changes how we live. It does this by changing all our values, so that everything we do comes out of who Jesus Christ is and what He has done for us. We do not think as the world thinks. We do not have the same values as they have. We realize we are in this life to live for Christ and for others, not for ourselves. Why, without an encounter with Jesus Christ, would we want to love others, to put their interests ahead of ours, to forgive those who have wronged us, to live to the highest standards in our finances even when everyone else around us is cheating? We would never live like this on the basis of worldly wisdom, but only on the foundation of our knowledge of Christ.

The wisdom of the world says to stick up for yourself and do a few good works along the way to make yourself feel better and look good. The knowledge of Christ says to lay your life down even for your enemy.  The knowledge of Christ is the only way to gain true wisdom and the only way to make your life a true success.